This week two well known tech executives revealed they have been dabbling in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In a recent interview, Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn detailed that he held bitcoin and ethereum in his personal finances, while the Intercom cofounder Eoghan McCabe tweeted on Sunday that he’s “jumped firmly onto the bitcoin wagon.”
In 2020 a number of popular tech executives and CEOs from giant firms have revealed they hold a fascination for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. On Friday, the cofounder of the telecommunications application Skype discussed a couple of donations he made in the past leveraging ethereum and bitcoin. Skype’s cofounder Jaan Tallinn sent 350 ETH ($158k) to the London-based organization Faculty AI and in March 2020, Tallinn donated 50 BTC ($850k) to the group.
Faculty AI won $800k from the U.K. Home Office in order to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system that detects terrorism through social media. During his interview, Tallinn explained that the reason why he donated cryptocurrency to the organization is because he keeps a majority of his wealth in crypto assets.
He opted to donate the crypto directly because if he cashed out the digital assets he would be liable for capital gains. According to the recent interview, Faculty AI’s annual accounts note that the company sold roughly $144k from the stash of ethereum in 2019.
Following the interview with Tallinn, another well known executive told his Twitter followers on Sunday that he’s jumped into the bitcoin space. On November 15, 2020, the chairman and cofounder of Intercom, a well known American software firm, tweeted about the decentralized crypto asset bitcoin. Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe disclosed he is
